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happy accidents
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| rubez |
how much do you rely on 'happy accidents' for achieving a killer sound? - or can you reliably sculpt a great sound you had in your head from scratch?
what form do any of these 'accidents' take?
a mistake? fannying around with settings? experimenting with different plug-ins? taking odd approaches? etc... what are these approaches?
i am still mostly at the mercy of mining through presets and fannying around until something clicks. |
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| Andy28 |
| Aye wasted many an hour fannying around.. We all have happy accidents as you put it but it's not something anyone should be relying on, for me anyway they are few and far between. |
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| evo8 |
| They do happen but as Andy says i wouldnt be relying on them happening |
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| djnitride |
| These happen most when I am just twiddling knobs working on a synth patch. They don't happen often when working on a song. |
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| AlphaStarred |
Happy Accidents result from experimentation, something which you should always be doing to achieve any kind of individual artistic expression. Once you stumble upon certain "accidents," they might contribute to your evolution as an artist, etc. You'll use these new-found accidents to further evolve and shape your unique soundscapes.
I don't think it's possible to "reliably sculpt a great sound you had in your head from scratch," although you can definitely start with a certain percussion, perhaps, and then let it go where it will go, as it were, by experimenting further. That's pretty much what I'd done with my earlier stuff; trying to emulate the early-mid 90's acid sound, for instance. Some of the tracks may be decent, and even better than my later, more "experimental" work, but they may be less original, too.
The thing I find with experimentation is that, although you may not produce something good immediately, you will definitely grow as an artist, and eventually you will stumble upon certain "accidents" that will click.
But yeah, ultimately, talk is cheap and the only thing that matters is that, if you want to put out some decent work, all you have to do is practice, practice, practice. It sounds like a cliche, but it's quite true. The more you keep busy working, the more familiar you become with your equipment and what it's capable of, and the easier it becomes to put out track after track. You'll be less concerned with achieving the "perfect" sound, and just keep busy working, resulting in a varied output, some work being better than others, etc.
That's basically why certain artists are so prolific and are able to play live performances. They practice virtually every day and become so familiar with their equipment, that tracks and sound structures can come at relative ease. I found that perhaps some of my best and most "original" work was produced when I didn't really think about it, and just kept doing it, not obsessing over minor details.
It's those moments of heightened inspiration, where you're not really aware of what you're doing and are becoming "one with the machine" that you may produce some of your best stuff. But becoming fluid requires constant practice. It's like a former acting teacher told me: art is at once the most simple and the most difficult thing to do. All the great artists, who also happened to be prolific, achieved what they did by constantly working.
So, to make it short - less thinking and more doing.
And please, forget about the notion of "achieving a killer sound." You should be your own worst critic, and the more you work, the less you'll settle for what you once thought was "killer." There are infinite sonic possibilities, so if you happen upon what you consider a decent sound, just expand on it and work your way into a track. Some of my own stuff that I thought might be "killer" was actually hardly noticed, whereas some stuff that I didn't much care for ended up being released. |
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| Mr.Mystery |
| Everything I've ever made is the result of random knob twiddling and happy accidents. I don't think I've ever had a clear idea of what I want to do when I start a project. |
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| cryophonik |
| I don't really rely on happy accidents, either - they happen at random. Sometimes, I don't even notice them at first. Case in point, I'm finishing up an ambient piece for our album, and there's a marimba-ish pluck sound that plays a short melody throughout the song. I was listening to the track the other day, and I realized that there is a 9th note that holds over the top of the last note of the melody, and it really stands out and sounds great. I started soloing the various pads and strings behind it and couldn't find it. It turns out that it's just the way the last note interacts with the previous melody note, combined with the reverb, that makes a weird ringing 9th harmonic. It sounds pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself, but I wasn't even aware of it until a few days ago. I've gone back and listened to older versions and, sure enough, it's there, but it stands out much more now as I've cleaned up the final mix. That little accidental subtlety is one of my favorite parts of the song (next to Amy's vocals, that is). |
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| Kthought |
Had one. Sucked. I went with Beatsİ By Dre.
On a serious note, what you are experiencing is a lack of sound design experience. An adept sound designer has short turnaround time finding the sound he wants, but doesn't rely on luck to find it. A master sound designer sets trends in music circles, such as a thrillseekers nord lead, again not much luck involved.
I may sound grumpy, that's cause I am. I know happy accidents happen whilst producing, i've just never converted one to a record. |
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| vercetti |
| I rely almost entirely on happy accidents programming semi-modulars , then saving a ton of presets for later use. And like someone much wiser than me said "understanding what's really going on in FM hinders your ability to make useful sounds with it" - or something like that. Basically use your ears and experiment x1000000. |
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